Book 5: Chapter 65 (348): All-Formed (Patreon)

The battles weren’t raging all over the place any longer. Things were calm as Rieren strode on. Though the battlefield lay ravaged and blighted, there were no more combatants tearing it up any further. It was heartening to see that Rieren’s side had actually won.

Almost.

The Banishedborn still posed a serious threat. Though even there, Rieren could sense a certain shift in proceedings.

New sounds joined the furious frays in the distance. A grinding, tearing noise like the land ripping itself apart under some great duress. New lights mingled with the flashes of the various Banishedborns’ powers. A new combatant who had joined the fray.

Had to be the former Aryoventos Clanmaster.

Judging by the shift in lights and the direction of the new noise, he had decided to join Starloper in his battle against the latecomer Banishedborn.

Strange. Rieren would have assumed that Elam Aryoventos would have headed straight for where the old Forborne Emperor was fighting four Banishedborn by himself. Was he angry with his former liege, or perhaps, even with himself for blindly wishing to be by the old Emperor’s side? It was difficult to tell.

Whatever the case, the trio of Banishedborn Starloper had taken would now have their hands full.

“Lady Vallorne!” It was one of the members of the Stannerig clan. The man who Rieren recalled seeing flying on a rock, way back when they had fought against the Abyssals and the Aetherians in the Shatterlands. “This way.”

“What is the state of the ongoing battle?” she asked.

The man explained it briefly. While the battle against the imperial court had more or less ended, with the last of holdouts now routed and fleeing, the fight against the Banishedborn was still ongoing. So, Clanmistress Avathene had decided to do something about it.

Coordinating with the combatants on “their side” would be difficult. It wasn’t like they could pop in and have a quick planning session with either the old Forborne Emperor or with Starloper while they were being assaulted by four and three Banishedborn respectively.

But they were still formulating a plan all the same. One that was rather simple. All the old Emperor or Starloper needed to do was focus on a single Banishedborn. Force said Banishedborn to use up enough Essence so that they were left too defenceless when the mere mortals could surround and end the Banishedborn for good.

Rieren wasn’t certain that was a sound-enough idea. Hopefully, the Clanmistress and the others knew what it meant to face a Banishedborn, even when one was weakened and seemingly defenceless.

A Fated-realm cultivator just wasn’t one to be messed with unless one was in the Fated-realm too, or had overwhelming odds in one’s favour.

It wasn’t long before Rieren met the others somewhat close to where the old Emperor was fighting off four Banishedborn by himself.

“Rieren!” Amalyse rushed over, followed closely by Kalvia. They both looked expectant. Waiting for something big. “You did it!”

It wasn’t a question, but a statement of fact. They must have seen some sign of the former Aryoventos Clanmaster joining the battle, though it didn’t look like he had come over to help the former Emperor he was supposedly so devoted to. Maybe things had become awkward between them.

Or maybe he realized that assisting Starloper to take down the other three Banishedborn would help their overall cause more.

“I did.” Rieren looked around. It was too bright in the direction the old Emperor was still fighting. Even when she squinted her eyes, she couldn’t make out much of what was going on there. “And I was filled in on your plan. Are you waiting for…”

They all looked around as a seismic shock reverberated from the exact site of the battle. Everyone was forced to hunker down as the air rippled around them and the ground crackled, fissures snaking over the whole area in seconds.

It also came with a Banishedborn flying out and striking the earth like a meteor not far off.

“There!” Kalvia shouted. “Now’s our chance. Get him.”

That was when Rieren realized it wasn’t just the handful of them nearby. Others were arranged all around the battlefield, all of them now roaring together as they rushed to where the Banishedborn had fallen.

It was hard to believe that they had actually managed to coordinate with the Forborne Emperor somehow. Had he spotted them all, arranged around his location, waiting like vultures to feast on the remains of a lion’s latest kill? Was he letting them finish off his enemy on purpose?

“Take care,” Rieren said as she ran alongside Kalvia. “This is a Banishedborn in the end, wounded or otherwise.”

“We’re aware.” Kalvia’s face was set. Grim. She knew the potential cost. “And we’re prepared for the risk.”

Rieren had managed to get the briefest of glimpses as to which Banishedborn had been tossed out by the old Emperor. Which was why she headed out first, raising her speed and using Fray Passage to boost herself. She came to a stop just as she reached the lip of the crater created by the Banishedborn’s fall.

Where Avel was pulling himself back to his feet.

He froze when he saw Rieren through the dust. “You dare approach me in your condition, Arianaele? Weakened and pathetic as you are? And here I always had a high estimation of your relative intelligence.”

It was something to note that he recognized her even now, long before what she looked like as an actual goddess.

“Weakened and pathetic, you say?” Rieren said. “Have you looked at yourself, Avel?”

“Nothing but flesh wounds.”

His grin and defiant words belied his actual state. One of his arms ended at a sizzled stump that was still aflame in gold. His other shoulder was stooped, caved in and bruised ugly purple. Two holes, one in his lower gut and the other on his right thing, oozed blood around the infestation of parasitic plants within them.

But despite all that, despite the myriad other little scratches, cuts, and wounds, he still exuded a Banishedborn’s power. The dark fur blanketing his skin glinted like metal, and his piercing eyes glowed with amethyst light.

Whatever his state, he was still a Banishedborn.

A Banishedborn who was attacked by several others in the next second.

Dozens of roots burst out of the ground to attack him, or at the very least, keep him locked in place. A massive fist of sand crashed in from Avel’s right, glowing molten hot as it transformed into spiky glass in seconds. A gigantic rock materialized over his head, hammering down like a crushing boulder.

Avel’s response was to merely spin. His fur glowed for a brief moment, before he rotated once.

The roots were ripped apart, the glass shattered to dust too small to see, and the boulder was broken into a storm of rocky shrapnel spraying outwards.

“Pathetic,” he roared out. “Is that the best you are capable of?” His glowing eyes landed no Rieren, a mixture of anger, ferocity, and pure contempt mixed in his gaze. “Is that you wanted, Arianaele? To trap me so your puny mortal brethren could strike me down? How weak. Now I see why you were so desperate to shed your mortal coil.”

He didn’t give Rieren a chance to respond. Didn’t give anyone any time to use any more attacks. Instead, he attacked.

Avel’s first target was unsurprisingly Rieren herself. He launched himself in her direction like a thunderbolt loosed from the crossbow of the heavens.

All that allowed Rieren to dodge was the fact his leg was leg injured. At the very beginning of his motion, his leg twitched, threatening to give away, his eyes widening for a fraction of a second in pain and annoyance. Then he was pushing himself forward anyway.

All happening in the blink of an eye. But that was all the time Rieren needed to throw herself to one side, aided by Fray Passage’s enormous boost to her speed.

Avel rushed by her original position, the ground rupturing at his passage. He twisted and came after her anyway, his motion so smoothly sharp, it was as though the natural laws of inertia and momentum simply didn’t exist for him.

“You can’t get away that easily—”

Avel slammed into a transparent mirror. Rieren grinned, stopping and turning around. She’d have to thank Oromin later.

The Banishedborn tore through it with a flick of his finger, but Rieren was already summoning her Domain.

“That won’t stop me!” Avel said.

His arm hammered through the water, his fist deforming into gigantic claws tipped with spiky, bony protrusions. But Rieren’s Domain summoning had been compressed to unleash a geyser, which took her high into the air. She was clear. For a bare second.

Avel was hurtling into the air like a reverse meteorite just a breath later.

Thankfully, Rieren had her sword to depend on. She might not still be able to summon up her Swordwings but Enchant transformed the Receptor Sword into the Floating Blade. A quick, almost panicky swipe had her arcing off to one side. The panic wasn’t unfounded. Rieren had moved just in the nick of time as Avel crashed through her airborne location a second ago.

Rieren twisted as she continued falling. Avel was trying to manifest his wings, but his lack of Essence came into play. All that he managed was forcing some bony spikes to emerge from his back, daubed with blood and skin. Nowhere near close to an actual wing.

Avel yelled in rage as he fell.

Rieren’s landing was soft in part thanks to Kalvia summoning a bush for her to fall onto. “You need to move. He—”

Avel crashed down farther off before Rieren could even finish her sentence. A shockwave blasted out from the point of impact, the earth rupturing as an avalanche of rocks went sky high. Pure destruction rained down upon them a second later.

Kalvia had thickened her Domain around them. The trees formed a protective barricade, stopping the majority of the rocks from hitting them. “We can stop him.”

“Of course,” Rieren said. “But I am not sure how just yet.”

“My trees can hold him—”

It turned out her trees couldn’t hold a Banishedborn at all. Along with summoning a thick forest around them, Kalvia had also sent out a jungle-like growth to the spot Avel had plummeted to. Clearly, she had been hoping her Domain could stifle the Banishedborn for at least a few seconds.

But the way her trees were flying—uprooted from the ground and thrown into the air—and the way the tremors of the shaking ground grew stronger every heartbeat, proved her wrong.

“Those flying trees are getting closer,” Amalyse warned. “Get back!”

“We cannot stop him like this,” Rieren said. “Do not get back, get away.”

Her two companions had completely different reactions.

Kalvia jerked away to her left, having revised her original estimation. “Lead him to the crater. The one where he first landed. Go!”

“The Abyss are you going to do?” Amalyse asked.

Kalvia’s voice dwindled as she hurried away. “Call down the Aether-cursed sun.”

Rieren, who had been focusing almost entirely on their opponent closing in on them with blistering pace, froze for a second. Kalvia was going to use that same technique she had attempted in the tournament. The prospect riled her emotions in a way she didn’t have the luxury to actually inspect and understand just then.

“Amalyse,” Rieren said, voice growing shrill in alarm. “I told you to get away.”

“We can take this bastard.”

“This is a Banishedborn.”

A blink later, the last of the trees Kalvia had left them all went flying at once as Avel charged through. Rieren only got to see the manic grin across his fierce face.

Then her view was blocked as Amalyse summoned her Domain.

She must have earned a Domain point some time earlier, for it was clearly powerful. Flames sparked to life in radius of about a dozen paces around Amalyse and Rieren. But that wans’t all. Her crimson weapons materialized too. Shields formed defensive barricade, around them and over them, spears poking through the small holes in between.

All of which was dashed away with a single swipe of Avel’s overlarge arm. Nothing of Amalyse’s Domain left even a minor scratch on him.

Rieren had been prepared for it, to an extent. She used her Domain once more. Forcing the geyser to send both her and her friend flying into the air.

Amalyse screamed out. It was mostly shock, at being thrown into the sky in that manner and perhaps also at having her Domain be torn apart with next to no effort. If she was in pain or was having any other trouble, it didn’t matter. She was still alive. Rieren focused on the Banishedborn to keep it that way.

Avel wasn’t going to be taken in by the same trick again. Probably why he dug both hands underground and sent a landslide flying at them.

“Monkey’s gargling balls,” Amalyse shouted. “How are we going to—ah!”

She was jerked out of the air. It was him! Rieren failed to remember the man’s name, but that was the cultivator who had first accosted her after returning from dealing with the former Aryoventos Clanmaster. He had come flying in on one of his rocks, taking Amalyse with him as he went.

Leaving Rieren alone to fend off the veritable crushed mountainside heading straight for her at a thunderous pace. She grinned hard. This she could handle.

Of course, not all of the rocks came to her exact location. The majority went flying well past. Earthfall Blade allowed Rieren to smack aside any that close enough. But Avel had never meant for the multitude of rocks to do his work for him. No, they had been a mere distraction. Something to keep Rieren busy.

So that when the Banishedborn came flying at her again, she would be too preoccupied with protecting herself to use Floating Blade. Not unless she wanted to get crushed by a rock.

Still. Getting caught by a Banishedborn would just end up spelling her death.

So, Rieren smacked the next rock aside, saw that Avel was a mere breath away from her location, and used Floating Blade. Again, only just in time. The Banishedborn flew past her, her hair and robes rippling in the wake of his flight.

Sure, Rieren was struck by a few rocks. She lost a tooth, split her lip, had a few ribs broken entirely, and was pretty certain she had fractured her shoulder to boot.

Pocket change, when compared to the price a Banishedborn exacted.

Rieren landed roughly. She didn’t wait to see if Avel was already crashing down or not—he probably was, going by the way his scream was getting closer—but she forced herself onwards. The crater. She had to reach it. A thin line of brilliant golden light was already extending off its top. Kalvia was ready. The rest was up to her.

A heavy hiss interrupted the onrushing scream from the Banishedborn. It made Rieren turn her head. An enormous serpent with glimmering white scales had crashed into the Banishedborn.

Only to suffer a premature death. Instead of chomping down on its target, it was torn apart as Avel grabbed its upper and lower jaws and simply ripped it in half.

As blood rained down all over the area, Rieren hoped Clanmistress Avathene had other Domain summons.

Despite the continuous evidence of strength and power that surpassed anything any of them could have come up with, the summoned serpent wasn’t the only one tackling the Avel directly. Rieren saw one man charging past her and drawing his sword. His technique sent white-gold flames scouring behind him as he rushed forward.

Rieren looked back just long enough to catch Avel tanking through the man’s attack with next to no harm suffered, before simply jumping and stomping down. The poor cultivator was crushed to bloody, fleshy pulp before he knew what was going on.

A few others tried and suffered the same fate. Rieren wanted to scream at their foolhardiness. The smarter of them were keeping their distance. They should have done the same.

But of course, that had given Rieren some time and space to reach her targeted position, so she couldn’t fault them too much.

Until the Banishedborn reached her.

“Where do you think you’re going, Arianaele?” Avel shouted, his voice closing in as rapidly as he himself did, the ground crackling and the air shivering at his approach.

Rieren cursed. So close. She used Fray Passage and—

And the Banishedborn still managed to grab her left arm.

“Finally,” Avel said. “I can savour taking my revenge.”

Rieren twisted and swung her sword. Avel grinned. What harm would a blade that was driven by one who wasn’t even in the Ascendant realm yet do him? Then he frowned.

For Rieren’s sword never reached him. The Receptor Sword sliced through her own left arm.

She bit down on a scream. Her vision turned red with agony, her body violently losing much of its balance. But through sheer force of will, she maintained her focus. Now was her chance.

“You won’t get away, Arianaele!” Avel screamed, but this time, for just a moment, his voice receded even as he kept moving.

Because when Rieren had used Fray Passage again to get away, she had boosted herself with Reaver Stance. Blood-red aura flamed around her as she shot over the crater where Kalvia was positioned. Rieren passed right through that thin gold line, feeling a flicker of the surging power Kalvia had built up.

A breath later, Avel passed over the exact same spot, hot on her heels. He didn’t care about whatever technique the cultivator at the bottom of his crater was concocting. Why would he? Everything else they had done had been ineffectual.

His hubris turned out to be his undoing.

As Avel passed over Kalvia, the tin thread of light instantaneously turned into a searing column. A pillar of golden energy concentrated to such potency that even a Banishedborn was shredded by it. Avel screamed out as the pillar of liquid sunlight cleaved a jagged, molten hole through his body and upper thigh as he passed through.

The Banishedborn slammed to the ground, screaming and cursing. He tried to rise, but failed to do so, sheer agony making his face go white and his eyes turn bloodshot.

Rieren grinned. There was a ragged, burned hole where Avel’s groin should have been. Kalvia hadn’t even spared him any mercy at all.

She stepped forward to end it, once and for all.

“Do not think you’ve bested me,” Avel shouted. “Me, Avel the All-Formed. You weak and puny mortals can never hope to match me.”

He tried to rise, to throw himself at her, but the ground turned to sand. A sea of golden grains clasped his whole body, turning whitish orange with heat as they hardened to glass. Petrifying the Banishedborn in place.

“Never!” Avel screamed. “I will not be stopped.”

Then his scream turned shrill, the air itself ripping apart under the auditory assault. It was like a volcanic eruption compressed into a point the size of a head. If he couldn’t attack them directly, he would shatter their minds with sound alone.

But a helpful, translucent mirror erected itself between the Banishedborn and Rieren. A mirror that shivered and cracked as soon as it formed but performed its job remarkably.

Much of the noise that the Banishedborn had flung out was reflected right back at him. So much so, that he was forced to stop.

“Enough, Avel,” Rieren said. “You have lost. Again.”

“I have not!”

As Rieren approached, Avel pulled out yet another trick. The rest of his body might be restrained, but the Banishedborn still had his head. A head that was now transforming into monstrous proportions.

His neck began to elongate like a snake, his jaw lengthening into a snout. All his teeth were turning into fangs.

“You will never—”

A glowing crimson crossbow quarrel slammed into his face and exploded, setting it aflame. Avel screamed. He still tried to punch through, but more bolts slammed, each looking like they were made of shining red glass, each aflame with flickering fire. Amalyse’s fire.

Rieren pointed her sword at her opponent’s burning face. “Enough, Avel. You are dead.”

“Never!” he screamed, defiant even at the end. “I will not—”

Rieren used Rippling Blade. White energy coated her Receptor Sword, lengthening it in an instant. The extended blade sheared into the Banishedborn’s face, stabbed through his brain, and erupted out of the back of his skull.

Time seemed to freeze for a moment, eventually broken by the achievement.

New Achievement!

You have defeated a godly foe! Though it took the greater combined effort of all your allies, you have finally felled a Banishedborn, one who has already taken his steps in the Celestial Realm.

Rewards

• 1 Level

• 1 Skill Point

• 1 Domain Point

Rieren slowly sat down, finally giving in to the pain of her missing left arm.